Jump to content

Talk:Boys' love

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 24.19.236.142 (talk) at 13:30, 31 August 2008 (→Merge proposal). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

This article has been copyedited by the League of Copyeditors. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.

Straightening Up Some Facts. (Haha, bad pun.)

I made a huge overhaul on the basics of what yaoi is and added sources. Here are the links, the text, and the translations!

http://zokugo-dict.com/27hi/bl.htm

BL/Boy's Love:

BLとはボーイズラブ（Boy's Love）という和製英語の頭文字で、男性の同性愛を題材とする女性向けのマンガや小説を意味する。やおいの一種。 BL wa (Boy's Love) to iu waseieigo no kashuramoji de, dansei no douseiai wo taizai to shite josei-muke no manga ya shousetsu wo imi suru. yaoi no isshu.

BL is an English-influenced Japanese acronym called "Boy's Love,"and it means comics, stories, etc. intended for women, with a theme of male homosexual love. Type of yaoi.

http://zokugo-dict.com/36ya/yaoi.htm

Yaoi:

やおいとは、男性の同性愛を扱った作品のこと。 yaoi to wa, dansei no douseiai wo atsukatta sakuhin no koto

"Yaoi" is works that dealt with male homosexual love.

http://zokugo-dict.com/12si/syotakon.htm

Shotacon (Shotakon/Shoutarou Complex/Shota Complex/Shota):

ショタコンとは、未成年男子（少年）を対象とする性的嗜好のこと。 shotakon to wa, miseinen danshi (shounen) wo taishou to suru seiteki shikou no koto

"Shotacon" is a sexual liking of the subject of underage young men (boys).

火の王国の王女 ~Fire Nation Princess~ (talk) 06:41, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for this, but I'm unsure on two things - firstly that BL is a subgenre of yaoi - I thought that in Japan, yaoi was the old word for plot-what-plot doujinshi featuring males, and that BL was an attempt to reclaim some respectability, and is the new umbrella word for all male-male "homosexual" material for women in Japan. Can you please provide another citation backing this up? Also, the definition of shotacon in the yaoi article is unclear - "underage young men" doesn't really say a lot - the shotacon article itself has "prepubescent" which is much more understandable as to how old the boys are portrayed as being. -Malkinann (talk) 12:53, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yaoi USED TO be just plot-what-plot materials, but it developed into a blanket term for all. BL is the term for all yaoi AIMED AT WOMEN. Yaoi is all male-male homosexual material. I don't have another source; I only have what I translated. I guess I could go find another Japanese dictionary. As for shotacon, I'll go edit the official page, because the definition says "miseinen," which definitely means "underage" and not "prepubescent." I'll go fix that now. 火の王国の王女 ~Fire Nation Princess~ (talk) 00:59, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If that's the case, then can you please edit up the Yaoi#Usage section here based on your sources? Also, are you aware of anything about the by-men-for-men "gay manga"? If Yaoi is the blanket term for male-male "homosexual" material, then logically there must be yaoi aimed at men, so that needs clarifying too. In this article, it treats yaoi as a subtype of "Boy Loves Boy" manga, and treats gay manga separately. -Malkinann (talk) 03:34, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Done. There was something wrong with the formatting that blocked out a lot of that section, so I fixed that, too. Yaoi aimed at men, as you said, is called "gay manga." After years researching, I have never heard of "Boy Loves Boy" manga and have not come across that term on any Japanese language sites. What would it even be called? "BLB?" "Boy Loves Boy?" "Shounen Suki Shounen?" "Shounen wa Shounen ga Suki?" My guess is that whoever wrote that article made the term up. Maybe it's just me, but I don't trust any material that doesn't give direct quotes in the Japanese language. 火の王国の王女 ~Fire Nation Princess~ (talk) 04:45, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for that. As that article is an academic article, that makes it a reliable source by Wikipedia's standards, so we must endeavour to find many reliable sources to get a full picture. Please take care to preserve the text-source relationship when working with an article with inline citations. Is what you just fixed coming from the dictionary definition? I can help you dual-cite it if that's the case.-Malkinann (talk) 05:06, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, it's from the definition. I don't know anything about what Wikipedia considers a reliable source; I'm just saying that, I, personally, do not trust anything that doesn't give actual Japanese text. Unless I can read it myself, I'm skeptical of it. Maybe I'm just too picky. -shrug- 火の王国の王女 ~Fire Nation Princess~ (talk) 02:31, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think the article is developing split personality again with two new definitions of yaoi. For example- Usage section paragraph 1: "Yaoi is used in Japan to include doujinshi and sex scenes, and does not include gay publications." 4 lines later: "...and yaoi for gay men by gay men is called "gay manga." I don't know which definition is more correct but it really can't be left as is. Another big question is- if yaoi includes gay manga then why does the article only deal with BL? Almost each mention of "gay manga" carefully distinguishes it from article's subject matter, yaoi.Tanya had (talk) 09:37, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Part of it is probably the "yaoi ronsou" - gay men find the depiction of men in girl-aimed yaoi distasteful, so they prefer to distance "gay manga" from girl-aimed BL. The Lumsing article may be able to provide further details on "gay manga", but I'm not sure I could squeeze any more out of it - I've read it too often. An article having a split personality is a good thing, as long as both sides cite their sources. So we can say "such-and-such a source says this, but so-and-so says that" and present both sides, appropriately weighted. -Malkinann (talk) 13:17, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What you describe seems ideal for this article. It's probably the only way to settle the disagreements over yaoi being 'male/male, 'BL' or 'hardcore BL'. Aestheticism.com works fine for me.Tanya had (talk) 17:45, 21 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I assumed by "gay publications," they mean nonfictional gay publications, like magazines, dating guides, etc. 火の王国の王女 ~Fire Nation Princess~ (talk) 02:30, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Firenationprincess- Do you know Japanese well enough to read the Japanese wiki articles for BL, yaoi or gay manga? That might clear things up a bit.
Haha, why didn't I think of that? -facepalm- It would take me a while, but I've got plenty of free time, so why not? :) I'll get on that now. 火の王国の王女 ~Fire Nation Princess~ (talk) 04:16, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
...Wow. I should have known. From what I could gather without a dictionary, there's plenty of conflicting information on those pages. More importantly... there are no sources. -.-; So, I didn't even bother thoroughly translating. Oh well. 火の王国の王女 ~Fire Nation Princess~ (talk) 04:51, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, let's look at the sources to clear things up a bit. The pedagogy article, about doujinshi, indicates that it's talking about gay manga, not gay lifestyle magazines. ""Gay stuff is more real," explained a yaoi fan echoing other female informants who repeatedly told us that the genre of manga found in the gay community is "about reality" By reality, yaoi readers were referring to depictions of behaviors which actually occur between gay males. On the other hand, yaoi and boys' love dojinshi, which "are fantasy," are seen as the imagined relationships between males, which exist only in the minds of female yaoi creators and readers." Aestheticism.com isn't responding right now for me, is it responding to anyone else? -Malkinann (talk) 03:33, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If I may...The "dictionary" cited is of highly questionable reliability. The idea that "boys' love" is a subgenre of "yaoi" is just plain wrong. Yaoi was a trendy term that originally referred to homosexual-themed parodies of "straight" anime or manga, and was coined as a joke, referring to the "plot-what-plot?" nature of so many of those parodies. BTW, I have this straight from the horse's mouth. I'm a good friend of manga artist Akiko Hatsu, who was a member of the small doujinshi group that first coined the phrase. It then came to be used to refer to all female-oriented, gay-themed doujinshi. It lost it's meaning, though, when female-oriented, gay-themed manga became a viable commercial niche, consisting of original works, rather than parodies. "Boys' love" is an all-inclusive term that replaced the more problematic "yaoi."
Second, there is no such thing as male-oriented yaoi. Some men, gay or straight (myself included) may read and enjoy boys' love (Hell, I'm translating some for publication right now), but manga created by and for gay men is not remotely like yaoi/boys' love. Most Japanese gay men find boys' love to be absurd or even offensive to gay men. As any Japanese boys' love fan will acknowledge, the genre is a fantasy created by and for women and having little connection to real-life male homosexuality. Matt Thorn (talk) 14:21, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I reverted an anonymous addition of "Naruto" to a line about the history of yaoi. Since the line refers to things happening a quarter century ago, including "Naruto" makes no sense. Matt Thorn (talk) 01:12, 20 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe the person misunderstood, thinking it was about series that have been parodied in yaoi doujinshi, and they wanted to add a modern example. I don't really want to add a bunch of examples, unless they are a micro-example of a phenomenon in yaoi fandom(s). For slash fiction, I think I may have seen (or I want to have seen) people writing something like "if there are male characters, there will be slash." I don't think there's an equivalent, quotable, statement for yaoi. Incidentally, (I know this isn't really your field), have you heard anything about the assertion that Shonen Jump has tried to attract yaoi fans? -Malkinann (talk) 02:51, 20 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Re. Weekly Shounen Jump. Oh yeah. I think that's considered common knowledge in the BL community in Japan. I've heard the magazine jokingly referred to as "Shoujo Jump." I've heard speculation that girls and women account for more than half the magazine's readers today. There's a clear pattern in which a story will have a "regular young boy" (usually dumb, always "pure of heart") as the ostensible protagonist, but have him surrounded by handsome young men of various types in supporting roles. The "dumb boy" hero allows young male readers to empathize in a way they couldn't if the hero was older, handsome, and generally perfect (i.e., Superman), and the handsome supporting characters provide endless fodder for fujoshi to play with. Jump's editors clearly do this because that know that "all publicity is good publicity," and having scads of doujinshi being made generates interest in and sales of the original. (BTW, I think Deathnote was the first notable example of Jump forgoing the "dumb boy" hero model in a major, non-comedy title and instead going straight for the fujoshi jugular, so to speak.) I've even heard some fujoshi complain that Jump's attempts to manipulate them are too blatant and actually have the reverse effect of turning them off. I think this whole "Shoujo Jump" phenomenon is important enough to include in this article. I'm sure I could dig up a quotable reference or two for this phenomenon. Just give me some time, and if you don't hear from me about it in a week or so, please remind me. Matt Thorn (talk) 04:18, 21 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FAKE cover?!

Should the fake cover really be the one at the top of the page? I haven't read the entire manga but from what I hear, there's barely anything sexually explicit in it. A short sex scene or two and that's pretty much it. And this is a series that spans seven volumes. FAKE own Wikipedia entry states that it's a BL manga! —Preceding unsigned comment added by FallenAngelII (talk • contribs) 2007 March 21

The Doujinshi Citation

I did enter this on another page that I thought was your 'talk page' but it seems I didn't. To answer your query on my talk page:

--The cited Mark McLelland article on 'the bulk of yaoi manga in Japan is doujinshi'.

I read this article, and I can't help but notice that while the article was uploaded with a recent date, many of the subjects he speaks of is still dated, in the text of the article, as mid-to-late 90's; just before the pro-BL publishing zenith in Japan. The actual citation used says At present, the majority of yaoi manga are produced by amateur women fans either as dōjinshi (fanzines) or on the Internet. There are now so many amateur yaoi titles, and such is Japanese women’s interest in them, that special editions of general manga and animation magazines often bring out ‘boys’ love’ specials.

He follows that up with talk of a 1999 collection to prove his point. Can you see what I mean, by dated?

It looks like the Mark McLelland piece was updated for the web, to include the Biblos Bankruptcy of 2006, and to update info on the licensing boom in the states--however, much of his article is still talking about the Japanese scene...circa the 90's. Since the late 90's boom, things have changed. Most notable, the pro 'BL' publishing scene which clearly out-produced the amateur scene. ^_^ Not trying to bring trouble, but that was my reason for asking for a citation check. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gynocrat (talk • contribs)

I believe the 'bonking' article was originally written in 2001 and later updated in 2006, so as you say, it could be outdated. As it is, I believe the verifiability policy recommends that if the statement on the bulk of yaoi is doujinshi is to remain in the article, the citation to the bonking article must stay with it. If you wish to remove the statement about the bulk of yaoi being doujinshi, I believe the usual thing to do is to find a reliable source that says differently, for further clarification. Please note the section on self-published sources in particular. (sorry to have to point it out)-Malkinann (talk) 01:40, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Question about yaoi fans(lover)

Whats the motive behind yaois? Supposing most yaoi writers are female, why are they seem to be drawn to yaoi? i know that for normals hetro sex, its pleasure from playing your gender role. Eg. if a guy is watching porn movie, hes drawn to picture himself as the guy in the act of the porn movie and females picturing herself as the girl in the act. What do yaoi fans connect themselves to? Can anyone explain the mindset of yaoi fan? -CuriousGeorge —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.115.1.234 (talk) 05:27, 29 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Most yaoi writers are female, and a fair few are lesbians (Lumsing). I'd suggest that you read the resources in this article (Yaoi#References, General references, and Yaoi#Further reading) to give you a fuller picture of why yaoi fans like yaoi. There are many different reasons that people have for liking yaoi. There's voyeuristic opportunities (to someone who likes guys, one guy is hot, two guys together is hotter - posited by McLelland), enjoying the taboo and overturning of norms (Noh), and seeing two guys together as being 'equal' (Wilson and Toku). I think that power is often an issue played with in yaoi - which character has the power, and which doesn't (as can be seen in seme/uke relationships). If sexuality is with two guys instead of a man and a woman, it's more distant, and so less frightening for a young female who may just be starting to think about her own sexuality (Welker). There's a fair few papers and articles out there which ask 'why?' and try to come up with answers - they'd be able to say it better. :) -Malkinann (talk) 06:57, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ahh thanks for the bit of info. I'll look into those articles. (cg) 76.115.1.234 (talk) 03:46, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
See also "slash" fanfic brain (talk) 16:01, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yaoi science fiction and fantasy

I trying to improve the Gay science fiction article, and i guess this Yaoi has some overlapp. I assume there is a large amount of science fictional / fantasy content, as with other anime/manga? If someone knowledgable could write a summary, it would be great. If not, i'll do it, but cannot be blamed if i get things wrong! Also: is it possible to identify the first science fictional yaoi, or the most influential or bestselling? Yobmod (talk) 10:18, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Publishers.

  • Biblos needs it's own page, or at least an article about it's history. Allyour Biblos are now belong to Libre.
  • Be x Boy, Supper BBC, Be x Boy NovelBiblos Comics, & Zero Comics (not to be confused with Zero Sum) all belonged to Biblos, now Libre.
  • Wings, Dear +, & Paper Moon are related.
  • It's not Pias Series, it's June Pierce.
  • Enerous & Gust are related.
  • Don;t just put "CL DX." Asuka, Asuka CL, & Asuka CL DX all do BL mangas.
  • Racish & Ikisuchi are related.
  • Aqua, Oak, & Pixy are related.
  • B's Anima (aka Boys Anima) & Shy are related.
  • Hanamaru, Jets, & Hana to Yuma are related.
  • Margaret & Ribbon Mascot are related.
Thank you very much for your advice on the publishers. I really want to make a page for Biblos, but at the moment I can't find any sources that say beyond "Biblos was a boys love publisher, it went bankrupt in 2006 and now there's a tricky situation between the people who picked up their old titles and the English publishers of these titles." Are you aware of any reliable sources which go into more detail about the actual company? -Malkinann (talk) 23:35, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Merge proposal

I propose that shonen-ai be merged into this article, as the various terms are increasingly conflated, and works previously considered shonen ai are now umbrellaed under either Yaoi or "Boys' Love". I believe it would be more helpful to the reader if we could merge them together. -Malkinann (talk) 01:29, 18 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No. Both articles are different. I rather have the 'Shonen-ai as an additional element' in the shonen-ai section. If we merge the articles, it will be long and confusing. Having two articles are better.[[::User:Jonica c|Jonica c]] ([[::User talk:Jonica c|talk]]) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jonica c (talk • contribs) 13:29, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for commenting here, Jonica. What is "shonen-ai as an additional element"? It's not in the shonen-ai article... The shonen-ai article is comparitively short and mostly covers the same things, but worse, than the yaoi article. -Malkinann (talk) 22:12, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I prepose a dismerge, seeing as someone has done it already.
I agree. The term "shounen ai" isn't really used that much in Japan ("Boys' Love" seems to be more common), and among English-speaking fans, "yaoi" and "shounen ai" are mostly interchangeable. However, in all of the Wikipedia pages in other languages, yaoi and shounen ai are separate, so that might confuse things a bit. MayumiTsuji (talk) 18:17, 28 July 2008 (UTC)MayumiTsuji[reply]
There's actually a difference between shounen ai & BL, but Japanese site owners & doujinshika have an incredibly hard time explaining it. Although I believe I have the gist of the difference, I have no documented proof. Also, with the shounen-ai article now gone, there is no information on it's predecessor; tanbi.
Thanks for commenting here, Mayumi. Why should what the other wikipedias do influence what we do here? -Malkinann (talk) 22:12, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
For example, if the merge takes place, will we link to ja:やおい or ja:ボーイズラブ, depending on which article the English one has more in common with. Or, of course, since this is the "Yaoi" page, we can just link to やおい, just to keep the titles consistent. It seems that in Japan yaoi and boys' love are separate terms, and that the English use of yaoi is closer to the Japanese use of boys' love. I really don't know where I'm going with this, but those are my rambling thoughts. MayumiTsuji (talk) 23:39, 28 July 2008 (UTC)MayumiTsuji[reply]
I've asked at Help talk: Interlanguage links, with a neutral example (no-one's trying to merge the articles involved there). In the see alsos, there used to be interwiki links to the Japanese pages, in the form you've got there, perhaps they could be returned. -Malkinann (talk) 00:45, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, shoujo ai and yuri are at the same page, for what THAT is worth. Could be a point toward the merge (and yes, I know WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS) ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 22:23, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for replying, but that's not really the best example - "Shoujo ai" was created by American fans as an analogue to "shonen-ai-as-mild, yaoi-as-explicit", where shoujo ai was mild, and yuri was explicit. Shoujo ai isn't a Japanese word, and the "back-kana" "少女愛 " and "しょうじょ-あい" don't appear on ja:ガールズラブ. Can you think of any other reasons why the articles should be merged? -Malkinann (talk) 00:45, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not anything of an expert on the topic, and always thought they were different in the same sense that "romance" isn't the same as "porn". ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 02:07, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not either - I've just read too much, lol. It boils down to that shonen-ai has more of a history than just being "yaoi lite" for non-Japanese fans, whereas shoujo-ai does not. Some of the early shonen-ai stories, like Kaze to Ki no Uta, were actually quite raunchy. (the main character of Kaze uses his body to get through school). -Malkinann (talk) 02:20, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What happened to the 'Shonen-ai as an additional element' on the Shonen-ai section... I miss that category!!! Can somebody bring it back? I mean, if Yuri has the 'additonal element' category, why not put Yaoi/Shonen-ai the 'addtional element' category.-Jonica c (talk) 11:43, 29 July 2008
That's simple. Because BL (yaoi/shounen-ai, as English-speaking fans like to call it) is a publishing category, whereas yuri is not. To put it simple, BL manga is specifically released by the publishers under the label "BL manga", and even in the bookstores you have specific "BL sections" when you can find "BL manga". This is not the case with yuri, which is more of normal genre (like sci-fi or fantasy) and most publishers don't bother to state their few yuri works as "yuri", nor do the bookstores have specific "yuri sections" for such material. Therefore it's pretty much up to the reader to figure out what is yuri and what isn't; the "yuri as an additional element" list is meant to help a bit on this. Kazu-kun (talk) 04:12, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
BL is a Japanese-created term. I was still in highschool when I realized that the Japanese were no longer using the term shounen-ai, & that was 10 years ago. I remebmer that even if you used the kanji for shounen-ai in a Japanese search engine, all you got back were dead web pages & references to old mangas. Now if you typed in the name of an anime; kanji of course, plus the abbriviation BL or a few character names & BL, you got boyslove pages. Type in the hiragana for yaoi & 18 in english & you got yaoi pages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.19.236.142 (talk) 13:22, 31 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
So, can someone put the BL 'as an additional element' :D. --Jonica c (talk) 09:59, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I seem to recall the list being controversial in the yuri article too, so I think it's not such a good idea. If such a list were created, every item would need to be sourced to a reliable source saying it's BL-ish. -Malkinann (talk) 10:45, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It seems you didn't get my point Jonica. Like I said, the publishers themselves decide and indicate what is BL, so readers don't need any help to find BL stuff. It's the same in the US; publishers always identify their yaoi/shounen-ai stuff as yaoi/shounen-ai, so readers don't need any additional list to help them find this stuff. Kazu-kun (talk) 17:54, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support - per reason #3 of WP:MERGE: "There are two or more pages on related subjects that have a large overlap. Wikipedia is not a dictionary; there does not need to be a separate entry for every concept in the universe. For example, "Flammable" and "Non-flammable" can both be explained in an article on Flammability." Basically, there's no reason to have a couple weaker articles when one strong and broad article will do just as well. --Kraftlos (talk) 05:31, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Like I said, it would confuse readers if it is merge. Well, as long as someone put back Yaoi/Shonen-ai'as an additional element' then it's fine. :D --Jonica c (talk) 09:59, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Why would it confuse readers if it's merged? Would it confuse readers any more than having a "poor cousin" article which isn't looked after and has fewer possible sources? (due to the umbrella terms being mostly BL or yaoi, both of which are covered here) -Malkinann (talk) 10:45, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Okay fine!!! Just make it really clear and have different headers, as long as you put 'BL as an additional element' ... screw the references!!! hahaha.. kidding! But please put the additonal element please.....--Jonica c (talk) 17:29, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
FYI, a merge is done manually. The information can be added in whatever way it works best. Nobody's gonna just stick the other article at the bottom. --Kraftlos (talk) 12:08, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support - Boys' love grew out of shounen ai, which is basically an extinct genre. From where I sit, in Japan, it's a no-brainer. In the Japanese Wikipedia, "Boys' Love" is the primary article about this genre/phenomenon. The article on yaoi addresses yaoi specifically as a doujinshi phenomenon that refers specifically to parodies of "straight" material. Basically, it treats "yaoi" as a historical, rather than on-going phenomenon. There is a "shounen ai" article, but this is primarily about the historical phenomenon of adult men in sexual relationships with pubescent/adolescent boys (e.g., Greeks, etc.). Buried way down in the article is a section on shounen ai as a subculture phenomenon in Japan, which is to say the shounen ai most of us think of when he hear the phrase. Now that's confusing. I see no logical reason why these should not be subsumed under a single article, with shounen ai and yaoi being explained in their historical contexts. BTW, Jonica c, I'm not sure why you are so passionate about the "additional element" angle. Isn't it enough to just say that male homosexuality appears as an element in shoujo manga that are not primarily about boys' love, offer a couple of examples, and move on? Matt Thorn (talk) 14:40, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There's a little problem with the term "doujinshi" as well. I've learned that somehow a comic of one's own online story not parodying something already in print still counts as doujinshi. The best example I've seen is Todd-chan's "Psycho Blast." & while it's not my cup of tea, I'd also like to point out that in Japan, Shota-con is called just plain Shota & Syota. What I can't remember the name of is the gay men's for-men yaoi...it's not called yaoi.

Support - it should have been done much sooner but I was too lazy to initiate it myself. I also think shounen ai as ephebophilia is important enough so that we DON'T simply redirect the article to Yaoi. The reader should have a choice where to go next (yaoi article/ephebophilia article).Tanya had (talk) 10:32, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Good point, Tanya had. "Shounen ai" should redirect to a disambiguation page that distinguishes between the two very different meanings of the word. Matt Thorn (talk) 11:35, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm a bit iffy on having a disambiguation page for shonen-ai, because I'm wondering when someone looks for shonen-ai on the English Wikipedia, what are they looking for? I imagine that for English speakers, the word "shonen-ai" means "boys in manga/anime in love" rather than being another word for ephebophilia. We can discuss the meaning drifts away from and back to ephebophilia, as the history of the term, certainly. I'm thinking that the Manual of Style page on disambiguations suggests not putting in non-English meanings? The example's a bit unclear...-Malkinann (talk) 13:06, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Touché. It's hard to imagine a situation in which someone would do a search for "shounen-ai" to find out about historical ephebophilia in Japan. It's probably enough to say that it originally (and to a certain extent still does) refer to ephebophilia, including a link to that article. Matt Thorn (talk) 14:34, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
ok, I see what you mean and I agree (assuming "shounen ai" is never really used by English speakers to describe ephebophilia in Japanese culture).Tanya had (talk) 19:37, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Article assessment

  • From User talk:G.A.S—I was wondering if you would be willing to expound upon your reassessment of yaoi at Talk:Yaoi, and give some extra hints as to how it could be brought up to C or B class. (aside from cleaning up the footnotes, I know they're inconsistently styled). I'm not so sure the citation system at Anekantavada would be helpful, as the "further reading" section in yaoi is used to identify potential sources which have not yet been included in the article, so that the reader of the article can know where to go. (I believe this kind of a section is supported by the MOS.) As such, it's different from the system at Anekantavada, where the references listed in the Bibliography are used as footnotes. Hope to see you at Talk:Yaoi soon! -Malkinann (talk) 21:52, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • By using the said citation style, it is easier to follow citations to the actual printed works; this is the style recommended for current featured articles where there are a few printed works, where each is cited multiple times. (This would be applicable to amongst others, citation 5 and 7 (used 8 times each, but no page references provided), and the others which are used more than three times) As I regard this article to be somewhat controversial, I recommend every fact be cited.
  • Sections for improvement:
    • The lead section should follow the order of the article (being, provide a summary of the facts in the same weights as the rest of the article; currently the lead focus on only a few points, complete sections are not represented in the lead). (See WP:LEAD.)
    • Complete the mergers, if applicable.
    • Work the "further reading" into the article insofar it is applicable (unless they would be too detailed).
    • Do not use paragraphs which are only two lines long; they should be combined with others to create longer paragraphs.
    • Do something about the Japanese BL Magazines and their Imprints list. (refer to WP:EMBED; I recommend the "List with no content" format in this case. (Remove the red links; {{AutoLink}} may be used for this.))
    • All of the cleanup (per cleanup templates) should be done before the article can be assessed as B class.
  • G.A.S 05:44, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for following up on this.  :) Please forgive me if this sounds ungrateful, but are there any other methods of individually page citing? I don't like that method, I find it very annoying to read. I'm interpreting WP:CITE#Including_page_numbers to mean that I do need to cite pages for books, but don't need to cite pages for academic articles unless I'm quoting. Is this interpretation correct? I wonder if {{rp}} would be a valid method of putting in the page numbers if so. The lead does need rewriting, that's a task that I think is usually best left till the end. Merge discussion has actually generated some conversation, which is good. I have been working the "further reading" into the article as I've read it, aside from Mizoguchi, which was added by someone else. Do you have any thoughts on what could be done with the pronunciation section? It used to have (sourced) information about how American fans mispronounced it, but that was removed as being perhaps confusing to the reader. Could you please apply any other cleanup templates you consider applicable to the article, and assess the validity of the current cleanup templates? (I do like the {{morefootnotes}}, though. it kind of keeps me motivated to read more, lol.) Thanks again for the review. :) -Malkinann (talk) 10:12, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Citations with page numbers are required when you refer to a specific passage in the text. It seems to me that this is the case, as you are sourcing individual sentences to texts (WP:CITE#Including page numbers).
The templates allows for interlinking the <ref></ref> citations to the specific texts, I cannot recall an example where this is done, though.
{{rp}} seems to be used elsewhere, but I do not know whether it is used in featured articles. This should not be an issue in B class or GA class articles. The important thing is to show the page numbers of the text, where applicable; then it will always be able to change the format thereof at a later stage, if required.
Regarding pronunciation: The best way is to state this in the lead, e.g. Paris (Template:PronEng in English; [paʁi]ⓘ in French) is the... .
It seems that all of the cleanup templates require sourcing. These can be removed once citations are added. The expert tag seems redundant, as it was added at a time the article had no sources (At that time it read "This article requires authentication or verification by an expert. \ Please assist in recruiting an expert or improve this article yourself. See the talk page for details.").
Let me know if you require more information.
The current guideline for B class is "Decent structure, proper lead, fair amount of information for each section."
Regards, G.A.S 11:29, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I still think that's an overly strict interpretation, but I'll assume good faith as you are trying to improve the encyclopedia, and I'll give some page citing a go. I believe the template you're thinking of is {{Harvard citation}} or closely related to it. I'd still find a templated Harvard and footnote mix to be annoying to read. So, WP:LEAD, add more references, clean up the references, finish up the merge, reshuffle the article, do something about the format of the list of BL magazines. -Malkinann (talk) 23:10, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Unreferenced stuff

This is all stuff that's been unreferenced for yonks and I can't find any references. Putting it here for safekeeping, and hopefully future referencing. -Malkinann (talk) 01:55, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

From Seme and uke: Other examples are that some of the anthologies published by Biblos feature stories on themes such as "younger seme" or "ribariba/reversables."[citation needed] The "height rule," the rule by which the taller character is the seme, is also sometimes broken.[citation needed] There is also the term "gekokujō" referring to when the character with more uke characteristics (be it physically or emotionally) actually plays the seme role in the sexual elements of the relationship.[citation needed] The term means "lower slays higher" and comes from feudal times when a servant would slay his lord in order to gain power.[citation needed]

From Publishing, about Biblos: (from the mid 90s) was once the most commercially successful publisher of yaoi in Japan,[citation needed] and (their folding) provided an opportunity for competitors to take up a larger share of the professional yaoi and BL manga market.[citation needed]

Rewrite of intro

I took the liberty of rewriting the intro, which was riddled with errors, inconsistencies, and contradictions. Hopefully it is more clear now. The definition of seme and uke was wildly wrong. The seme can be and often is younger and more "feminine," and the uke is often older and more "masculine." That is a major part of what makes the dynamic intersting, right? If it was just masculine older boys/men going after feminine, passive, younger boys, it wouldn't be very interesting at all. I have no idea where the definition in the previous edition came from. Also, as I wrote earlier, the zokugo dictionary is extremely unreliable as a reference. I think any references to the zokugo dictionary should be replaced with more reliable sources. Matt Thorn (talk) 03:37, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Forgive me if this sounds cheeky, but do you have any suggestions for alternate, more reliable sources for the definitions or the variations in the seme/uke relationships? Even the stuff about the "height rule" being breakable (which I think is fairly common knowledge amongst yaoi fans) has lain uncited for months. Unfortunately, I don't have access to the US-Japan Women's Journal, and Mizoguchi's paper in particular seems like it would be very useful for identifying relationship variations.-Malkinann (talk) 04:46, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Not cheeky at all. The problem is there are no definitive resources, in Japanese or English, and anyone who tells you "This is definitive" is just proving their ignorance. You should hear Japanese B.L. fans argue about seme and uke and pairing and everything else under the sun. But if you would offer the definition of seme and uke that I deleted to Japanese fans, 95% of them would say, "That's completely wrong." Then ask those same people, "All right, define the terms for me, you'll get a wild argument that ends in no consensus, beyond the fact that the seme is the aggressor and the uke is the "aggressee." (Too bad there's no good antonym for "aggressor" in English.) Actually, I was just looking at the Japanese "Boys' Love" page, and was amused to see the same puzzling definition of BL as a sub-genre of "yaoi." Then I looked at the discussion page, and guess what? The article's being written by guys. I mean, I'm a guy, too, but I've been doing this for twenty years. Wait, I don't mean "doing" in that sense. Not that it would be a problem if I was. Some of my best friends "do that," really. I mean I've been studying the genre for 20 years, and have talked with literally hundreds of Japanese fans of the genre, not to mention artists and editors. (One of my colleagues was the editor who created Juné. Another is Keiko Takemiya, who arguably invented shounen ai.) Um, where was I? Oh, yeah. The point is that the Japanese Wikipedia is seriously underdeveloped, and you end up with articles like that one being written be people who have only fragmented and sometimes distorted knowledge of what they're talking about. There are, however, several books (all in Japanese) and many academic papers (some in English, like mine) on the subject that can be used as references. I'll go check my bookshelf and see if I can find attempts to define the genre and technical terms. I know I have at least three books there that should be helpful. To be honest, I'm not all that familiar with the English-language literature anymore. I find most of it exasperating, so I stopped reading it years ago. I find that even a lot of the Japanese nationals who write in English on the subject have a shallow knowledge, and seem to think they can get away with writing what amounts to an off-the-cuff essay just because they're Japanese. I don't know if that's true of Mizoguchi. Sorry to rant. Matt Thorn (talk) 06:19, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Definition is one of my least fave things to do - I'm much more interested in fan activity. There's a slight problem now with the lead in that the "Usage" section contradicts it pretty comprehensively. Looking forward to seeing some additions to the further readings from you. I'm aware of Dru Pagliassotti being a fan and a scholar, recently she's written an essay on terms, but I'm not keen on using it because it's forward-looking rather than grounded in tradition, including all depictions of male/male romance/erotica for females by females. -Malkinann (talk) 12:40, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm. I just read the "Usage" section, and I don't see it contradicting my rewrite of the intro, but maybe I'm missing something. It's not a very well organized section, and probably contains some unnecessary trivia, but the only thing that struck me as misleading was at the very end, where it says "shounen ai" used to refer to pedophilia. The correct term would be "ephebophilia", since sexual attraction to prepubescent boys has never been socially acceptable in Japan, or anywhere else I can think of. There's a big difference between pedophilia and ephebophilia. I'm going to change the word. If anyone has any objections, let's talk about it here, but I recommend that you first read the article on ephebophilia, which is quite informative. Matt Thorn (talk) 13:14, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

http://fujyoshi.jp

Has anyone else seen this? I was searching for pages (in Japanese) that talk about BL and are actually written by BL fans (known as "fujoshi," or "rotting girls," in case you didn't know), and though there are countless pages in which fujoshi discuss particular works, pairings, etc., they are very few that talk about the phenomenon on a "metaphysical" level. This has been true as far back as I can remember. It always seems like the people who want to analyze BL as a phenomenon are not fans themselves. Anyway, here is a rare site that, to some extent, talks about the genre on a meta-level. Predictably, much of it is tongue in cheek, but the "glossary of fujoshi terminology" is both amusing and informative. Take the definitions of uke and seme:

Uke: In a work dealing with love between men, the character who, during sexual intercourse, is penetrated. Example--"This uke is like a chihuahua, he's so cute!"
Seme: In a work dealing with love between men, the character who, during sexual intercourse, penetrates. Example--"The seme in this story is totally my type!"

No ambiguity here. (^_^;) There are so many hilarious terms defined here, but most of them are terms fujoshi actually use. (I know, since I spend a lot of time around fujoshi, and they seem to forget that I'm not a fellow fujoshi but a middle-aged man.) But while a lot of his site is tongue-in-cheek, it is the real deal, created by real BL fans, and therefore in my opinion is more "authoritative" than 95% of scholarly work on the subject (including my own). Matt Thorn (talk) 08:33, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Cute! I can't read it, though. If one interprets the external links guideline liberally, it's okay, because it's related to the subject, and has unique information that isn't on here. -Malkinann (talk) 12:17, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry! I misspelled the URL. It's "http://fujyoshi.jp", not "fujoshi." Matt Thorn (talk) 04:08, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Theme tidbits

Here's a couple of broadly thematic tidbits that I have no idea where to put in the article. -Malkinann (talk) 12:17, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Homophobia is used as a plot device to "heighten drama", or to show the purity of the leads’ love.Brenner, Robyn Romance by Any Other Nameref name ="Mori Mari"
  • Women have very minor roles.ref name=Akibayaoi Mothers, in particular, are portrayed badly. Suzuki suggests this is because the character and the reader is attempting to replace a mother's "unconditional love" with the "forbidden" all-consuming love presented in yaoi.Suzuki, Kazuko. 1999. "Pornography or Therapy? Japanese Girls Creating the Yaoi Phenomenon". In Sherrie Inness, ed., Millennium Girls: Today's Girls Around the World. London: Rowman & Littlefield, pp.259-260 ISBN 0847691365, ISBN 0847691373.

Seme and Uke

Wow. I just starting reading this, and was stunned at how wrong it is. If Suzuki described the seme as "masculine" and uke as "feminine," then I'm afraid Suzuki doesn't know what she's talking about. I thought every fujoshi on the planet had read at least some of Yasuko Aoike's From Eroica With Love. That is the prototype. The unashamedly gay man pursues the stereotypical masculine, stoic man, and gradually (or suddenly) breaks down his resistance. The uke has to be freaked out by his feelings for the seme to some degree. Of course, there are plenty of exceptions. And come to think of it, the fujoshi.jp definition based on "penetration" is way off, too. Think about it. Plenty of stories involve the feminine seme steadily seducing the uke, whose feelings finally explode in an agressive act of penetrating the (very self-satisfied) seme. Most of you have probably read enough BL to imagine any number of plotlines. These days, some of the best so-called BL artists forgo the whole seme/uke thing, and simply have the two "hook up" in a more natural, organic (?) way. My good buddy and former student, Est Em, is a good example. Sometimes there's a hint of seme/uke in her work, but usually she explores deeper aspects of the relationship than just "who seduces who" (which is why neither she nor I liked the English title "Seduce Me After the Show"). I'm rambling again, but the point is this kind of gross generalization is not just wrong, it makes the genre sound more formulaic and shallow than it is. IMNSHO. Matt Thorn (talk) 13:50, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've not finished using Suzuki's work yet, which may contradict or clarify matters further. She generally prefers using the words "active" and "passive" rather than seme and uke. Suzuki describes two main modes of relationships, and says that they are both equally common - in the first, she describes two equally masculine men, (I imagine they'd both be "beefcakey" types), where the one who takes the lead in public life or who has the more prestigious job being the "passive" partner in sexual matters. In the second, she says that the yaoi couple is portrayed as heterosexual through various methods, such as showing one character as larger and more masculine, or through showing one as being a more willowy type and his partner being a macho, macho man, and using language choice or "voice" of the characters, such as boku opposed to ore. She also reckons that as girls felt more free to ogle, they started wanting to ogle more manly men rather than the boys of shonen-ai. I think the key here is that she says the heterosexual dynamic can be portrayed through various methods, so that in itself can be an important qualifier for any further description we may wish to add of the ritualisations of seme/uke. -Malkinann (talk) 09:37, 1 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I must say that what you describe doesn't quite match my own experience with BL. A stereotypical masculine, stoic man in BL is much more likely to be the seme (romance fiction 101: The Mr. Darcy Prototype). The uke might be masculine but the seme is usually even more stereotypically masculine. Looking at the covers in Amazon's yaoi catergory, it's pretty obvious who is the seme/uke in most titles.Tanya had (talk) 20:24, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There are certainly many titles that fit that description. But there are many others that do not, and I suppose my point is that there is not one simple formula. When fujoshi here in Japan talk among themselves about BL, the thing they argue about most passionately is pairing, and who should be the seme and who should be the uke. I even know one or two friendships that have been strained or broken because of disagreements about this sort of thing. That is one of the things that makes the genre interesting to me: it is clearly a distinctive phenomenon, and yet the details can be very different, and are also very important to the fans. People who get really into it, as opposed to casual once-in-a-while readers, have very strong opinions and sharply-defined tastes. Matt Thorn (talk) 15:32, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Blond and dark-haired?

I notice that in James Welker's "BL as Girls Love" paper, he mentions that Yukari Fujimoto devotes some attention to the visual cue that one character is dark-haired and the other is blond. He says that she says (isn't Chinese whispers fun?) that the dark-haired one is usually more masculine and grounded in reality, whereas the blond is more feminine, "decorative" and "separated from reality". Is this common enough to put into the description of the partners? -Malkinann (talk) 21:56, 11 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. I wonder which of her writing he's referring to. She doesn't mention it in the old "shounen-ai" essay she let me publish on my web site. I've never noticed such a phenomenon, but now that I think of it, that is the case in three classic shounen-ai/BL from the 1970s: Yasuko Aoike's From Eroica with Love, Keiko Takemiya's The Song of the Wind and the Trees, and Moto Hagio's The Heart of Thomas. But then again, in all three of those works, the more "feminine," fair-haired character was undeniably the seme. I would be cautious about including a generalization like this, since readers may assume it's a hard and fast "rule." But Yukari is a solid authority on shoujo manga, and, compared with other published critics/scholars, BL as well. She's not only extremely intelligent (and funny, stylish, and beautiful--sorry, got carried away there), she reads more manga than anyone I have ever met in my life, and that's saying a lot. I seem to remember hearing her once say she reads roughly 50 manga magazines, cover to cover, every week. Anything Yukari says on the subject is worth citing, though you have to keep in mind that what she wrote 20 years ago and what she wrote last month may not synch. (That's true of anyone with a functioning brain, I suppose.) Oh, and tomorrow's her birthday. (^^) Matt Thorn (talk) 00:52, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
He says it's in her 1999 paper, "Shoujo manga ga mederu otoko no karada" (The male body admired in shoujo manga) Kuia Japan (Queer Japan) 1 (November): pages 24-28. I think Welker also suggests this blonde/brunette dynamic is also seen in yuri - Shiroi Heya no Futari being the defining work there. He says that Fujimoto says that Oscar and Andre from Rose of Versailles also follow that dynamic, but he questions her calling Oscar the "blond type", as he reckons that Oscar isn't divorced from reality, but is rather an idealist. Perhaps it's a combination of the artists wanting to make the characters visually distinct from each other ("opposites attract"), perhaps wanting to show foreign-ness through the exotic hair colour (maybe covered in Nagaike's paper?), combined with imported stereotypes about blondes and brunettes? I don't know. Please make sure she has a happy birthday! (It'd be a bit weird for me to wish her one myself, wouldn't it...) -Malkinann (talk) 03:13, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"Please make sure she has a happy birthday!"...(•_•;) No. No, I won't got there. Tempting as it may be. (I did send her a little gift, though.) Ehem. First, the word "blonde" is quite a loaded one when you're talking about manga, which is a black and white medium. Excluding color illustrations (in which hair can be literally any color), all hair in manga is "black," but some has more white space. I would disagree that "light" hair makes a character seem "more foreign," at least to 99.9% of Japanese readers. But hair that is "more black" is inherently "heavier" looking, in the literal sense. This sense of "weight" can extend to the reader's perception of the character. Serious characters, I think, are more likely to have blackened hair than are less serious characters, though there are always exceptions. (E.g., in Honey & Clover, Morita's hair is "blacker" than Takemoto's.) I'm looking through a copy of BGM ("Boys Guys Mens") Vol. 3, a BL anthology published by Tokyo Mangasha in December 2007 (and which I have because it includes a piece by my buddy and former student, Est Em), and although most of the stories differentiate the two main characters through "lighter" and "darker" hair, I don't see any pattern in terms of seme/uke, or personality. Hell, these days a lot of BL doesn't even have a clear seme/uke. I'll have to dig up Yukari's article, but the example Welker refers to, and the three examples I gave above, all come from the 1970s. This may be an extinct pattern. Either way, I'm not sure it merits mention, but that's just my opinion. Matt Thorn (talk) 05:17, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yikes, I didn't mean it like that! Moving right along now... So, it could just be a convienient 'make my characters look different from each other' approach, not specific to yaoi and possibly even not specific to manga? Maybe once you find the original article things will become clearer. -Malkinann (talk) 05:54, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Discussing the appeal in the article?

As I've been merging in shonen ai, I think I've kind of got most of what will be useful. I plan to use a {{Merged-from}} so that everyone can easily find the old page should they want to. The last little bits I'm unsure of are what to do with these referenced sentences: "Many enthusiasts say they are drawn to the beauty and distance of the characters, as well as the idealistic depictions of male love. Some argue that because shōnen-ai excludes females from the relationship, it is sexually non-threatening to its female audience while still allowing them to identify with its characters.(ref) Others would argue that it is perfectly natural for women to be attracted to the idea of love and sex between males.(ref)" It's a bit of a delicate issue, especially as if a discussion of the appeal isn't exceptionally well-written, it runs the risk of saying that fans are psychos. And then there's the idea of how much weight we should give any discussion... Thoughts, please? -Malkinann (talk) 22:01, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There are any number of sources that could be referenced here. In my own Girls and Women Getting Out of Hand, I reference several Japanese writers who have written on the subject (Chizuko Ueno, Yukari Fujimoto, Keiko Takemiya, Shihomi Sakakibara), and also my own theory based on fieldwork, and include quotes from fans. I also refer to at least three scholars who have written in English about the appeal of Slash (Camille Bacon-Smith, Henry Jenkins, Constance Penley). I could have mentioned at least one or two other writers, as well. I think it's possible to present a number of theories without making fans sound like psychos. I think it's important to include something on the appeal, because the uninitiated who first encounter BL/Slash almost invariably react, "WTF? Are these women perverts?" By the way, until recently I had only an excerpt of my article on my web site, but the other day I uploaded the entire thing. I figure it's not going to harm sales of the book. About the Takemiya essay, unfortunately I cut it out without noting the publication information (this was almost twenty years ago, when I was just starting my research and didn't think about such details), and Takemiya herself has no recollection of where it was published. (-_-;) Matt Thorn (talk) 06:41, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Howzat for starters? And yet, the uninitiated would also go "Hm, Lesbianism in erotica? Boys will be boys, ha ha!" Damned double standards... -_- Could it also be possible that Takemiya's essay dates from 1996? She's quoted as saying something similar in this paper by Lunsing, who uses the quote from something written by Satou. -Malkinann (talk) 12:16, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No, the Takemiya essay is much older. Maybe 1989 or even '88. I have a scan of the whole thing, and somewhere I must have the original that I cut from the magazine, but I didn't notice the lack of publication information until it was too late. I could really kick myself for that. And the ironic thing is that Takemiya, who is now a colleague of mine, has no recollection herself. As for the double-standard, this is probably straying from the topic, but Setsu Shigematsu (a Japanese-Canadian scholar) wrote one of the few English-language essays I really like and agree wholeheartedly with titled "Dimensions of Desire: Sex, Fantasy, and Fetish in Japanese Comics" (In Themes and Issues in Asian Cartooning: Cute, Cheap, Mad, and Sexy. J.A. Lent, ed. Bowling Green, Ohio: Popular Press, 1999). I summarize her argument in my "Out of Hand" paper. Although her writing style (at the time) was over-the-top academese, it's still worth plowing through all the name-dropping and jargon. When I first read it, I thought, "Yeah! That's it! Why didn't I think of this!?" (haha). Anyway, I think the current "Appeal" section, though badly in need of copy-editing, is a good start. I'd also like to include Sakakibara's controversial theory that yaoi fans are "gay men born into women's bodies," as well as I my own pet theory, which is--well, you can read it in great detail in my "Out of Hand" article. Matt Thorn (talk) 15:02, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I would recommend against a large appeal section (a little one should be okay) because it could end up very opinionated and one-sided. It could also result in edit wars, as a person stumbling upon the article might see one of the theories and think, "That so doesn't apply to me!" and remove that theory. Also, a lot of those theories seem to be written by people who aren't into yaoi and they make a lot of assumptions about women's sexuality, which can be very rude. And even with references, a large appeal runs the risk of being full of original research, and if the editors have a lot of biases, the kinds of references used might reflect that. Those are my two cents. MayumiTsuji (talk) 16:36, 3 August 2008 (UTC)MayumiTsuji[reply]
I know I sound like I'm contradicting myself, but I think Mayumi Tsuji has a good point. The only two "theorists" among those I mentioned who are truly into the genre are Sakakibara (who has the most radical theory) and Takemiya (who can rightly claim to be the "mother" of boys' love in Japan). And although my own work is based on observation of and much conversation with literally hundreds of "true fans," I can't claim to be a hardcore fan myself. It might be best to keep it short and simple. But I do think it is important to say, "This writer argues 'A', while this other writer argues 'B'," otherwise we run the risk of portraying "theories" as objective fact. I wouldn't want even my own theories presented that way, for the very reasons Mayumi states. Perhaps an "Appeal" section isn't necessary at all. For comparison, I just checked out the Romance novel article, and at the very end is a short (three paragraph) section titled "Critical attention." The difference in title is significant: instead of asking the unanswerable (and possibly rude) question, "What makes these fans tick?" it points out that the genre has earned serious attention from both academic and non-academic writers and critics. That section might serve as a model for a similar section in the "Yaoi" article. Matt Thorn (talk) 10:16, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What would a "Critical attention" section involve for yaoi? The romance novel's critical attention section deals with the low-brow stigma of reading romance novels, and ever so briefly touches on the appeal. Would a critical attention section here involve themes of yaoi, and feminism and yaoi? -Malkinann (talk) 11:18, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have a brilliant answer off the top of my head, but it is certainly true that the appeal of shounen-ai/yaoi/BL has been a source of endless fascination among scholars and critics. Apart from the prominent people I've mentioned, they are probably no fewer than 20 less-well-known scholars or graduate students, both in Japan and outside Japan, who have written articles or given conference presentations on the subject. Most are pretty lame, IMO, but it shows there is interest. It might be enough to mention this fact, mention some of the more prominent names, and provide references to what they have written, rather than trying to summarize the content of the material. Does that make sense? Matt Thorn (talk) 12:21, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
But in saying that there is academic interest in the appeal, it is logical to then briefly cover the main arguments. I'm trying to think of other stuff that could be in a 'critical attention' section in order to balance the focus on 'why'. In McLelland's 2000 book, he reckons there wasn't much English-language scholarship, and even less in Japanese (p.61) - has there been a "BL boom" in the literature since then? -Malkinann (talk) 22:40, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It depends what you consider a boom. Mostly it's been conference papers, many quite obscure, or commentary in general-audience books or magazine/newspaper articles. It's been common in Japan since the early 1980s, at least, and in English since the early 1990s, but there probably has been an increase in output in English since 2000, simply because the genre has taken root in the English publishing market. The remarkable thing is that most of this stuff, both Japanese and English, has been written as if the author is the first person to ever write about it, which shows how little research they put into. So they keep reinventing the wheel. Or in this case, "reinventing the Geocentric World View" might be a more apt metaphor, since so many of them reach the highly questionable conclusion that girls like this stuff because they are afraid of adult sexuality. (If they want to escape from sexuality, why create and read comics about guys bonking each other right and left?) I think Fred Schodt was the first to write about the subject in English, in 1983. (See pages 100 and 101 in his still-essential Manga! Manga!.) Hmm. Maybe I can find time to draft a really brief overview of "critical attention. Don't hold your breath, though. And if anyone has the time and motivation to do it, by all means, take a shot. You can use my Sandbox to experiment. Matt Thorn (talk) 23:32, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like Malkinann and I wrote drafts in the sandbox at the same time. Is mine too long-winded? (Am I too long-winded? Wait; don't answer that.) Matt Thorn (talk) 01:58, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, you did say "concise"! Mine was intended as a broad overview to the key schools of thought on yaoi, to be expounded upon later, after a re-read of the articles in question. Yours is awesome, although from a Wikipedia editor point of view, the bit on the timeline of BL scholarship needs to be verifiably cited. Not that I think it's dodgy, but it seems to be a little-known fact, and so might need an inline citation. Inline citations seem to help things 'stick' on Wikipedia, especially if they're to stuff that's available freely online (rather than in a book or in a journal article which can't be got at) and if it gels with what's already known on the subject. "The sky is green" wouldn't stick, no matter how many inline citations came after it. -Malkinann (talk) 02:54, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're right about the inline citations. I was just to lazy to do the coding, so I just dumped all the sources in the "References" section. (^^;) BTW, I think I must have found out the info on that Takemiya essay at some point, because one copy of my manuscript on my computer confidently states "1993, p. 80" or something like that. My copy of the book is in my office at school, and I don't know when I'll be able to go get it. I don't suppose anybody has a copy of Fanning the Flames lying around? It's a good book, BTW. Editor Bill Kelly (the one who does baseball, not the other Bill Kelly who does something else on Japan) is one of the few Japan scholars I would classify as Truly Brilliant™ and he made sure the book was good. We all had to rewrite out chapters several times before they passed muster with him. Unfortunately, the publisher screwed up all over the place. (They included the wrong graphic for my chapter! And Bill has never forgiven them for putting a photo of a Yomiuri Giants cap, instead of a Hanshin Tigers cap, on the cover.) Anyway, I'll add the inline citations soon, but if anyone wants to make any changes first, please go ahead. As you can see, Malkinann cited several sources I'm unfamiliar with, so we might want to lengthen (or, alternatively, seriously abridge) the section. Matt Thorn (talk) 04:04, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Anonymous, unsubstantiated edits/additions

I just deleted a poorly written, unreferenced, and anonymous claim that, "lately it's been heard to call these "role switchers" as a "Seuke" an obvious mix between the words seme and uke." The author was "75.71.73.208". I've never heard of "seuke," a search (in Japanese) turned up nothing, and Japanese pages that talk about seme/uke terminology don't mention it. Until "75.71.73.208" comes up with a reference, I'm keeping this out. Matt Thorn (talk) 22:14, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe it's an English-speaking fandom term? (like the use of shonen-ai to mean "light yaoi")? -Malkinann (talk) 22:40, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe. Either way, we need something more than "lately it's been heard". The closest Japanese term I know of is "riba" (リバ), an abbreviation of the English word "reversible," which is used to refer to pairings in which either character can plausibly be portrayed as seme or uke. This term is listed in the glossary of fujyoshi.jp. I can't think of a good example offhand. For some reason, the favorite pair of a former student (and current pro mangaka), James Potter and Severus Snape, popped into my head, but it's hard for me to imagine Snape as a seme. Maybe Frodo and Sam? Anyway, the question is, do we really want to go into this degree of detailed terminology? The more detailed we get, the shakier the ground becomes, because there is no "canon" of universally recognized terminology in BL fandom. Matt Thorn (talk) 23:52, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it would be nice to have something to balance out the focus on seme/uke a bit, and riba seems a reasonable variation on the norm. I can't seem to find a definition of riba on fujyoshi.jp. :( -Malkinann (talk) 11:53, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry about that. The glossary is at http://fujyoshi.jp/fujyoshi_kouza0, but to read the definitions you have to sign up (which is free). Here's the definition, in Japanese, with my translation:

リバ 【りば】 リバーシブルの略。受と攻が逆になってもおいしくいただけるカップリングのこと。 このカプはリバありだね。
Term: "Riba" Definition: Abbreviation of "reversible." Refers to a coupling that can be tastily enjoyed even if the seme and uke are reversed. Example: "This couple could be riba, don't you think?"

Matt Thorn (talk) 13:02, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
BTW, there are other terms for BL that doesn't fit standard seme/uke patterns, such as "Homo yuri" (ホモ百合), in which you have an uke/uke coupling. Revealing term, isn't it? The example sentence given is "I bought a homo yuri book out of curiosity and it was totally great!" The implication is that the average BL fan be skeptical of coupling that isn't seme/uke. Matt Thorn (talk) 13:07, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the explanation of how the site works... It'll be handy. ^^ That's yuri as in yuri, isn't it? Wow, that explains a lot. -Malkinann (talk) 13:23, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, that yuri. Found another. Mujaki seme (無邪気攻め, "innocent seme") refers to a character who appears uke-like and seduces the other without seeming to be doing so intentionally. The sample usage is "I think I'll use a mujaki seme setup in my next book." Great stuff. You know what's funny? If you spend enough time with BL fans, and reading BL, you find yourself unconsciously "slashing" everything and everyone, even if you're not really a BL fan. One of my best friends is a young woman who makes non-BL doujinshi, and we sit around watching LOST and CSI together, and almost every time there's a "BL moment" when one of us says something like, "You could make a whole BL doujinshi based just on that brief scene." It's just a habit you pick up. It's one of my favorite pastimes, which may be why rumors that I'm gay persist. Every year I get students telling me, "One of the new students asked me if you're gay. I said no, but she won't believe me." Even the current president of the university once asked a student I'm close to if I was gay, and when she said no, he responded, "No way. He's definitely gay." (^o^) Matt Thorn (talk) 13:30, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Found yet more terms that defies the seme-masculine/uke-feminine stereotype. "Toshishita seme" (年下攻め, "younger seme") refers to a seme who is younger than the uke. The sample usage is, "It's the classic must-buy of BL, right? Everybody loves a toshishita seme!" Here's another. "Hetara seme" (ヘタレ攻め, "wimpy seme") is a seme who is not very aggressive. "Osoi uke" (襲い受け, "attacking uke") is an uke who suddenly "attacks" the (usually hetare) seme. This is the kind of thing I was referring to earlier. The sample usage is "Don't you think a hetare seme and osoi uke are the ultimate combination?" Matt Thorn (talk) 14:56, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There's definitely a continuum of slashability. ^^ I recall watching Blake's 7 with my father and finding a massive subtext - it was kind of awkward when he asked me if I liked the show... ^^; Does it really sap the fun out of slashing or making BL doujinshi if there's an openly gay character? I'm not familiar enough with shows with gay characters to say so or no. I guess that in canon, an openly gay character would be used to explore important gay issues, which can be a bit of a downer, or else he runs the risk of just being 'the gay one' and not being interesting beyond that. Back to discussing the article... This has just made me realise that the doujinshi section doesn't cover original doujinshi, (original June??) before the parodies came in. Also, should I put in the hetara seme and osoi uke in as a nb for the part where it says 'sometimes the uke is the aggressor'? Something like "This is called osoi uke (attacking uke), usually his partner is a hetara seme (wimpy seme)(reference to fujyoshi.jp)"? -Malkinann (talk) 22:46, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The continuum is important, I think. I know fujoshi who, just for laughs, "slash" the most absurd things you can imagine, including inanimate objects. (I'm reminded of Jon Stewart's "Brokeback Senate:": "Ted Stevens, I wish I could quit you!") Original doujinshi before the earliest parodies (Captain Tsubasa, Saint Seiya, etc.) might be hard to document. The first comiket was--What? 1975? And in the early years original shoujo manga (including shounen-ai) made up a considerable amount of the content. It would have been called shounen-ai, and maybe later Juné, but now that I think of it, I don't recall ever reading much detailed info about pre-parody shounen-ai doujinshi. I do know that some of the creators (e.g., my buddy Akiko Hatsu) went on to become established professional manga artists. I'll see if I can find some references. As for seme/uke, I would be cautious about such declarations as "This is called osoi uke," since the jargon is fluid, changing often and being used in different ways by different fans. Something like, "For example, the term osi uke has been used to refer to..." would be preferable. (Ouch. Double passive voice. My writing professors would have smacked my palms with a ruler.) Minor note: It's "hetare," not "hetara." If you want to draft something in my sandbox, I'll be happy to edit it. I'm lazy, but I'm a decent copy editor. Matt Thorn (talk) 06:04, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Usage

Malkinann, the addition about Kurimoto (a.k.a., Azusa Nakajima) is great. It's hard to overstate her importance in the development of this genre. Both as author and critic, she is justly legendary. The absence of her name till now was a serious omission. Her 1991 book about the rise of a particular subset of otaku, titled Komyunikeeshon fuzen shōkōgun (コミュニケーション不全症候群, "Communication Deficiency Syndrome"), was a ground-breaking bestseller. It was also quite timely, following on the heels of the Tsutomu Miyazaki serial killings. Matt Thorn (talk) 06:37, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if you know of any biographies on her, her article is crying out in a plaintive voice, "reference me! reference me!" - also further information on how she, as both authors, developed the genre would be helpful, the citation just says that she wrote important shonen ai mono stories. I wonder if we've enough information here to make a small subsection on non-manga (but still Japanese) manifestations of "Boys Love" such as tanbi? -Malkinann (talk) 06:49, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Critical reception

In User:Matt Thorn/Sandbox 1, there's been a discussion about reworking the "appeal" and "debate" sections, and what we've come up with can be seen in User:Matt Thorn/Sandbox 2. Just thought I should put a note here about the change. The initial difference can be seen here. -Malkinann (talk) 20:49, 19 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Shounen Ai

Aside from it needing to be spelled shounen & not shonen, since no one on the web spells it that way, it needs to be expanded greatly & include publishers. What happened to the original BL/shounen ai page? They redirect here now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.19.236.142 (talk) 13:10, 31 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Talk:Boys%27_love&oldid=235373530"